St. Paul Pioneer Press tech blog by Julio Ojeda-Zapata

Your Tech Weblog

St. Paul Pioneer Press tech blog by Julio Ojeda-Zapata

Torchlight Parade in 360°, take two

Virtual-reality video is all the rage, and this year St. Paul Winter Carnival fanatics could experience the Torchlight Parade in full 360 degrees without having to actually be there.

Chuck Olsen of Minneapolis-based Visual made it possible via a video-recording rig consisting of several GoPro cameras pointed in different directions while recording in unison. The rig was on a pole at the front of the Pioneer Press’ T.C. Rover van as it moved along the parade route.

Olsen later “stitched” together the various GoPro videos on his computer to fashion a single 360-degree video. It’s jaw-dropping:

But, as it happens, this was not the only virtual-reality camera capturing 360-degree footage that night.

Here’s another VR video of the Torchlight Parade:

I recorded the video using a new virtual-reality camera called the 360fly, which was also mounted on the front of the T.C. Rover.

The 360fly is simpler, cheaper VR-recording hardware, aimed at average consumers, unlike a GoPro-camera rig that is much more expensive and intended for professional videographers like Olsen.

You get what you pay for. The quality of the 360fly footage is inferior to that of Olsen’s GoPro setup. That is why you need video pros like Visual when top-notch results are paramount.

Even so, the 360fly’s 360-degree sequence is pretty cool.

Recording it was cool, too. I accomplished this via a 360fly app on my iPhone. Once I wirelessly connected to the 360fly via direct Bluetooth and Wi-Fi links, I could see a live video feed on the VR camera via my iPhone, and tap to record at any time.

Editing and posting my 360fly video, which consists of multiple clips aggregated into a single video, was not quite as simple.

You can upload individual VR clips to YouTube and Facebook using the handset app or a 360fly desktop app for Mac or PC, but things get trickier if you want to edit together multiple 360fly clips using desktop applications such as Final Cut Pro. It is doable, but it’s complicated, and I needed a bit of guidance to get all the steps exactly right.

The camera maker said it is working on a new version of its desktop apps that will incorporate editing capabilities in a manner that is easier for average mortals to grasp.

Both of the VR videos posted above can be experienced in a variety of ways.

If you are watching on a computer, user your mouse to “pan” in different directions. You can do likewise on your smartphone, but be sure you are watching the videos using Google’s YouTube app, and pan around using finger swipes.

Again, you’ll need to watch the video using the YouTube app, and this will only work on Android phones for now (sorry, iPhone owners). When you’ve pulled up either video in the YouTube app, tap a little icon that looks like a set of goggles to go into VR-viewing mode.

Once you’re watching the videos using VR goggles, it’s almost like you’re at the parade. “Immersive,” they call it.